What started out as a social media app for people to share disappearing images and videos has transformed into one of the most powerful advertising tools for retailers and DTC brands.
Snapchat may have stiff competition in the social media space, but with 414 million daily users and a youthful audience base, it is still a massive opportunity for e-commerce brands today.
Like other social media platforms, Snapchat has made shopping a core part of the social experience and rolled out powerful advertising tools, including their own version of dynamic product ads (DPAs).
In this article, we'll walk you through Snapchat's Dynamic Product Ads and shed light on why this ad format has become so loved by retailers and e-commerce marketers.
Snapchat's dynamic ads run similarly to Dynamic Product Ads (DPAs) on other social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram, although they have a few distinguishing elements that we'll cover in this article.
We've outlined the step-by-step process to make launching your first DPA campaign easy:
First things first, you need to upload your product feed to the Snapchat platform so that their team can review it; this is just to make sure you're advertising within their guidelines.
A product feed holds all of the necessary information about each of the products in your catalog; this could be prices, images, titles, or descriptions. However, a robust product feed goes further and includes additional attributes like ratings, sustainability, on sale, and much more.
To get the most out of your product feed and avoid any possible errors, be sure to review Snapchat's product feed support documents before you move on to the next step.
Your product feed has been uploaded, so your next task will be to build some product sets. Think of product sets almost like subcategories; they're used to segment your goods based on different price points or types of goods, e.g., clothing, garden furniture, etc. Snapchat requires advertisers to do this so the right products are delivered to the most relevant people rather than targeting those who won't click on them.
The next task is to install the Snapchat Pixel on your website. This tiny piece of code has to be copied and pasted on the backend of your site so Snapchat can track and retarget visitors. This will give you the best possible chance of converting people who've already expressed interest in your brand.
Now comes the exciting part: you can begin creating DPA ads according to your company's style. Snapchat provides a few templates to play with, so advertisers can find their feet at the beginning, but they're quite limited in terms of creativity.
It’s becoming increasingly difficult to stand out in a sea of sameness on social channels, which is where a platform like Marpipe can really help.
Simply upload your Snapchat-optimized product feed into Marpipe and take advantage of conversion-tested templates and powerful generative AI tools. These new enriched ads are turned back into attributes within your product feed and give you the best opportunity to create scroll-stopping moments inside Snapchat.
Ready to launch? You've got everything in place; all that's left to do is click that launch button. After this, you can sit back and wait and watch the clicks coming in while Snapchat serves your ads to those high-paying customers; it's easier than you thought, right?
Let’s talk tracking! The Snap Pixel is a small piece of code you need to add to the back end of your website so Snapchat can learn how people interact with your site after seeing an ad on their platform.
For example, a Snapchatter might see your DPA ad, click on it, and browse your site but leave without buying anything. With the Snap Pixel in place, Snapchat will help you retarget that person with a fresh dynamic product ad featuring the very product they were eyeing earlier in a different format.
Snapchat offers three different creative formats for dynamic product ads: single-image ads, story ads, and collection ads. Here’s a quick overview:
This format promotes a single product from your catalog, leading users to a specific product page. These are simple and effective for showcasing individual items in your e-commerce store.
Made up of 3 to 10 images, story ads appear in Snapchat’s Discover section. They give you the opportunity to tell a more visual and immersive brand story tailored to fit your audience.
With this format, you can showcase multiple products, up to four at once. These ads pull products from your catalog and display them to your target audience, making it easy for users to browse different options.
Here are some of the main reasons why you should use Snapchat for your dynamic product ads.
Snapchat is a large and growing platform with over 400 million daily active users! If you’re already leveraging Meta and TikTok but witnessing diminishing returns, Snapchat should absolutely be at the top of your advertising consideration set. If your brand aligns with the demographics of the Snapchat audience, then the platform might even be at the top of your marketing priorities.
The DPA ad system on Snapchat does all the heavy lifting for companies to keep advertising simple and quick. You just upload your product feed, place the pixel on the back end of your site, and you are good to go.
Snapchat helps you reach an often elusive young customer base while layering in powerful demographic, geographic, and intention-based signals as part of your audience-building strategy. Additionally, Snapchat is continuously improving their ad efficacy with new tools and features to lure in top-tier advertisers.
With over 400 million DAU and 8% growth in users year over year, Snapchat is a formidable force within the advertising mix. By leveraging a programmatic strategy with DPA ads, you can now produce creative at scale across your entire product catalog and generate results with even a humble budget allocation.
At Marpipe, we're firm believers that Snapchat's DPA ads are a great way to reach young shoppers; however, it’s important to be deliberate with your advertising creative when trying to get the best results from this discerning audience. That’s where Marpipe comes in, offering generative AI tools and conversion-proven templates that integrate effortlessly with your new product-feed-powered workflow and dynamic ads.
Ready to get started? Build your first ads for free with Marpipe today.
